1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pager for receiving messages and a method for calling the pager. More particularly, the invention relates to pagers carried by a plurality of users and a method for transmitting the same message to such pagers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pagers have gained widespread use in recent years as means of communication for exchanging desired messages (via operators). Pagers may illustratively have a group calling function whereby the same message is transmitted to a plurality of users carrying the same type of pagers. The function is convenient for a group of people communicating with one another through message transmissions.
For a group of users to make use of the group calling function, it is necessary for the users first to purchase a set of pagers and then to write a group address to each of the pagers so that they may be called up simultaneously. A single message transmission calls up all pagers in the group. This can be a disadvantage to some users. That is, those to whom a given message is not relevant must necessarily be called up and receive the message as well.
Message transmissions with different contents are by nature addressed to different combinations of receivers. Even within the same group, transmissions may not always take place to the same combination of users all the time. However, attempts to send the same message to each of individual users concerned in the group are time-consuming and can run up telephone charges. A need has thus been recognized for a group calling method for designating a specific group of message receivers depending on the contents of messages.